


this darkness is nothing but a lack of light

by wolfchester



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, well i seem to have made myself sad again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6041488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is on fire, always burning, from the inside out. And she is the deepest calm, the kindest touch, the brightest light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this darkness is nothing but a lack of light

**Author's Note:**

> _It's the darkest side of my heart_   
>  _That dies when you come to me ___

In his dreams, he is always on fire. Always burning. His flesh falls off him in peeling layers, and he can hear his own screams echoing inside his head.

Always burning.

He burns in the daytime, too, not just in his dreams. Although it's more figurative than literal.

The burning comes from within. A deep, hidden desire for something more, something that he should not want for. Yet he does. With every fibre of his being, Anakin  _ wants _ .

Obi-Wan tries to explain it to him, explain the power of the dark side and how he must not let himself by drawn to it. Padme knows, too, somehow. That something within his mind is not quite right. (But she does not say anything, because she is almost seven months pregnant and she does not want to admit to herself that her beloved husband is a psychopath and a killer.)

Padme knows but she does not say anything. Yet she is always by his side when he wakes with a start in the early hours before dawn, skin damp with sweat, chest heaving. She is always there to brush away the hair from his forehead, kiss his shoulder, and hold him until he stops shaking.

If Anakin is fire, then Padme is light. Bright, brilliant light. Safe. Warm. Kind. She is everything he is not, and there is a miracle in the fact that she still loves him -  _ chooses  _ to love him - after everything that he has done.

He tells her about Shmi and the Tusken raiders, and how he didn’t feel guilty about it. How he almost  _ enjoyed  _ it - that immense power that flowed through him with every clench of his teeth and swing of his lightsaber. He tells her this with an eerie look in his eyes, a burning fire there, and she can only watch and listen and swallow the lump in her throat.

The nightmares come almost every single night. Flashes of dark blood on white robes, his wife screaming with two other voices joining in - him? Obi-Wan? A child? He doesn’t know. He just has this overwhelming sense that something is about to go very, very wrong.

She wakes with him, every night. And every night she tiredly wipes her palm across his brow and tells him sweet nonsense like  _ everything is going to be okay  _ and  _ I love you _ and  _ you’re safe now. _

Anakin worries about her, worries that he’s hurting her. He wants to send himself away, to be somewhere where the ever-present allure of the Dark Side cannot tempt him, and where he cannot hurt his wife or his unborn child. But he  _ needs  _ her. He needs her so heartbreakingly much.

For she is his sun. She is the gravitational force that pulls him back into reality, into the light, when he is tiptoeing the line between life and death. She is his anchor, his steady ground, his unmovable rock. He needs her, and he loves her, and he is absolutely scared to  _ death  _ that he will break her.

But still, but  _ still _ , she wakes with him every night. Every night, she wipes her palm across his brow and whispers words of love and compassion in his ear. And every night, he lies in her arms and falls asleep listening to the small, but brightly pulsating Force signature of the being inside her womb. 

She is light, blinding and brilliant. He is light, also. Just his light is a little duller than hers. Like a grey cloud. But when he is with her- when he is with her, he is a grey cloud with a shimmer of sunlight sliding through. 

(There is hope for him yet.)


End file.
